Hello. Until now we've largely been talking about the history of war. How war has progressed. How war has shaped our world. In this last week, I want to take a look a little bit of a look forward. Now, I don't pretend to have a crystal ball. The capacity of social science to predict the future is extremely limited. My own personal history in being able to predict things is not very, very good. But rather than giving you a sense of what's coming. I want you to think of the following lecture. As a way of thinking about the structures of what might come. About what kinds of challenges the world is facing. What war might look like in the 21st century. Now, I think there's three really big questions about the future of the western way of war. The first one is, what is the future shape of it? That is, how is, how is it going to work? Is the kind of dynamics, the kind of processes, the kinds of organizations that we have seen. Roughly over the last two or three millenia. Are they going to be consistent? Are they going to remain the same? The second, what does this mean? What does this change mean for the practice of the classic western way of war? That is, for those societies that have associated themselves with this classic way of war that we have been largely focusing in. What do changes in war mean for those societies? What do changes in war mean for the military capacity of those societies. And then the last question is, what can be done in light of these two? That is, what can we think about as a world, as a society? When we're facing a world where war is changing and where the societies that have depended on a particular kind of war, are going to be challenged in new ways. Now I want to get at that by asking about three different kinds of potential conflicts around the world. The first one is major theatre wars. That is these are the classic kind of wars that we've been talking about. The second is conflicts related to the breakup of states. And the third one is terrorism. So let's talk about three in the, in order. And let's first look at what the possibilities are of major theater wars, that is, the classic western way of war. Now these are characterized by, and let's just take a laundry list of what we've been covering the past ten weeks, it's long duration, more than one battle, extensive territory involved. Mass armies, mass resources, a line, a diffused line, but nevertheless a line between civilian and military. These kind of wars require large populations, rich resources, clear ideological lines or territorial lines, organized states and armies that is very, very important factor of organization. And, some kind of territorial exchange. Now what I want to do is a take a quick, sort of, tour through the world and try to get a sense of where we might find these kinds of major theater wars. Where might we think that these kinds of conflicts and these kinds of wars may be relevant. Let's first look at the Western Hemisphere. And the Northern Hemisphere. Here, certainly north of the United States, the possibility of a conflict between the United States and Canada, is so far fetched as to be largely unimaginable. The same thing could be said of a conflict, between Mexico and the United States. The close alliance between the two countries. Certainly, the symmetry of resources. It would be very hard to imagine any kind of, again, major theater war, classic war. Despite some comments about the Cuban threat, one has to really stretch the imagination to think, that Cuba might pose a threat to the United States. It's possible that the United States might be involved in some kind of invasion of Cuba. All things are possible, but very unlikely. And then you have Central American states with so little military capacity, as to make the kind of war that might have even occurred 40 years ago between Honduras and El-Salvador extremely unlikely. So at least in the Northern Western hemisphere, we find a very peaceful in terms of these kinds of wars. So we will come back to that and we'll show that all is not peaceful. How about in South America. Here again, we have a hegemon that is largely Brazil. We have a situation where there very few international tensions. There are, there are considerable historical tensions, between Brazil and Argentina, but these have been largely ironed out. There are some territorial questions between Argentina and Chile, the same perhaps the hottest issues between Chile and Bolivia and Peru regarding the borders and the consequences of the war of the Pacific in the 19th century. But these so far have been largely resolved diplomatically. Moreover the asymmetry of resources Chile could certainly, the Chilean military, far above the capacity of the Argentinian military. One could argue even the Peruvian military. Brazil having a preponderance in this whole region, certainly reaching into its frontiers. One other possibility is some kind of major theater war between Columbia and Venezuela, and we had seen some squabbles across the borders. But again, neither Venezuela or Columbia really have the military capacity, the military resources for this kind of major theater war. So largely in the Western hemisphere. That kind of classic World War ll struggle involving large numbers of men, large numbers of resources, large number of organization is extremely unlikely. Let's go to Western Europe. And Western Europe again, despite defraying of the European Union. Clearly, the alliance between France and Germany seems to be holding very well, since this has been the source of either France or Germany, or France and Britain, since these kinds of conflicts have been dominant for the last 300 years. The fact that these three countries have essentially established a long term alliance, a long term coexistence, makes any kind of major theater war, again, in this part, very unlikely. If we move a little bit to the east, it's a little bit more likely. I remember saying about a couple of years ago, that it was very unlikely that Russia would take any kind of military action as a frontiers. That's just shows you how much of a clairvoyant I am, but nevertheless notice the Russian action in Ukraine and the Russian action in Manduva, and a Russian action in Georgia. Have really involved a set of political intrusions, have involved the support for rebels, have involved the support for third forces. Rather than except in the limited, very limited case of Georgia, a true military kind of confrontation. Part of this is that the military structures of even Russia, but certainly the countries around it. Do not really have the capacities for this kind of major theater wars. Moreover, the presence of atomic weapons in Russia makes a likelihood that anyone of these bordering countries. Could really represent a military challenge to Russia? Extremely unlikely. We're now in the summer of 2014, so it's not very clear how this will develop. But again, this is not to deny the presence of a great deal of conflict in this part of the world. But to say that it is unlikely to be resolved by this kind of mass movement, of troops and material. Let's move South and talk about Africa. Here again we have a question of the military capacity of the various states. That is can any of these states really pose a danger in a sense to other neighbors. Even if they did, would they have the kinds of capacities for this protracted war, or would we be talking about a war of very short duration and very few resources? Obviously, there are many, many conflicts. There is the ongoing conflict between Sudan and South Sudan. But that is not being practiced, in a sense in this classic major theater war. Rwanda has made itself something of a Prussia of the Great Lakes region and there has been horrific conflict going on for 20 years, and the Great Lakes regions particularly in the eastern Congo. With fatalities perhaps as high as five million. A war that has been largely ignored by the world, by the way. But this war, despite it's horrific cost. Despite it's horrific violence. Has taken on a very different form, than the kind of mass movements of forces that we associate with the western way of war. Again, I'm not denying the violence. I am looking at the kind of organizational logic behind that violence. Perhaps the only country that would have the military capacity. To really engage in this kind of struggle might be, might be, South Africa, but again, it is unlikely that it is going to engage in any of that with its neighbors. There have been attempts to create a West Africa, in a sense, police force this has had mixed results when is tried to control local violence and it remains again, more of a police force, then an actual military organization. One that is oriented towards the destruction of some enemy. The situation of course looks quite different if we look at the Middle East and Central Asia. Here it seems that the classic Western way of war remains. But with some limits. The preponderance of the Israeli military and the possession of the monopoly, so far, of Israel with the nuclear weapons, makes the kind of even very short term major theater war that we saw in the 1950s, 1940s, 1950s, 1970s very, very, unlikely. That is the, because of the weakness of the surrounding states and the collapse of Syria, Israel in a sense doesn't have to fear this kind of conventional attack. in the 1980s, so a tragic version of a major theatre war. Between Iraq and, and Iran sort of a replay of the worst parts of World War I, but again, given the changes in Iraq, the disappearance of Saddam Hussein, the possible break up of Iraq that we will talk about. That kind of struggle is unlikely. We will get a little bit to the more recent events in Iraq, but rather than seeing the possible conflicts between a Shia Iraq and ISIS or even the involvement of the Kurds, or the penetration of Iran, I think we have to be cautious about thinking of this as a major theater war. Obviously the gulf states in Saudi Arabia continually prepare for this kind of struggle, the amount of military hardware and training that these countries possess is quite amazing. Largely in a sense trying to prevent any kind of attack from Iran. Again, while there's going to be conflict in these countries where we might see some kind of tension between them. I don't think there are many who believe that a convention warfare between, let's say, some kind of a, a, alliance of the Southern gulf, [UNKNOWN] domi, the Sunni dominated gulf, and the Shia Iran is, is likely, although, we might see that. And certainly these, both sets of countries have created the kinds of capacities, that may be possible to use in a major theater war. We also have some potential sons of conflict around the Caspian. You have relatively weak states. And again, here we might see conflict, we might see some kind of violence, but certainly not the high level of organization and resource use that we associate with the classic western way of war. If we move further East. Let's first look at South Asia. Here, again, we have an armed camp. We have a classic, almost cold war, often getting quite hot, between the Indian military and the Pakistani military. We have confrontations. In some of the highest mountains of the world we have a great deal of violence going on. However, the mutual possession of nuclear weapons makes it kind of classic, major theater war. Somewhat unlikely, this, might be the India Pakistan dispute, might be the one case that really proves or disproves the idea that the destructive power of nuclear war is in a sense something of a peacemaker. That both countries would be very reluctant to enter into certainly, they are going to keep shooting at each other. There's going to be continued violence. There's going to be continued deaths. But a major declaration of war. A major kind of action, might be, might be controlled by the fear that it would escalate in to nuclear war. According to various experts, if there is a place where some kind of use of nuclear weapons is likely, probably, unfortunately, and sadly, this might be the area, but we will see. And then we move to China. And here is perhaps the closest we come to a 19th or 20th century. Balance of power where you have a possible hegemon or a likely hegemon, that has interest perhaps in expanding. There have been efforts by China, to claim larger and larger parts of the South China sea, because of the petroleum resources. There are possible conflicts of China with all of its neighbors. There's ongoing tensions with Japan. Ongoing tensions with Korea. Certainly, ongoing tensions with Vietnam. Let's not forget that there was a war between China and Vietnam in 1979. China is in a very particular situation in that it has massive need for resources. If we look for example at the flow of rivers in most of South Asia, we see that they largely come from this mountainous area here. Thus for example China's very, very strong interest in maintaining control over Tibet. And this kind of area. China's need for resource could even again, in the 19 and the 20th century form, see it trying to reach into Siberia and it's water and it's various minerals, but here again. A sort of nuclear balance of death would likely prevent this kind of struggle. The most likely kind of confrontation here, might be between China. And the United States representing some kind of the United States representing the interest of some of these neighbors. This would have to be a localized war in a sense, China would not have the capacity, except with some nuclear weapons. To attack the United States, the United States would be very reluctant certainly, to get into a massive struggle with China. What I think we might see here is moments of tension, of aircraft carriers in a sense, now that China is developing its own aircraft carrier, of planes buzzing each other. Of navies playing games with each other. But given the economic and commercial links, between China and the United States, again, the likelihood of this, outbreak of this old fashion, if you will organized violence, is relatively unlikely. [BLANK_AUDIO]
